Devonte Smith won’t be getting a crack at John Makdessi on Saturday night. Instead, Smith (10-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC) will take on Khama Worthy (14-6 MMA, 0-0 UFC) on the night’s prelims.

Regardless of the outcome of his UFC 241 bout, “King Kage” wants to lay his hands on Makdessi (17-6 MMA, 9-6 UFC) as soon as possible.

UFC 241 takes place Saturday at Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif. The night’s main card that airs on pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN and ESPN+/UFC Fight Pass.

After Makdessi pulled out of their scheduled clash due to an undisclosed injury, Smith thought the matchup was in the rear-view mirror, actually going through another opponent with Clay Collard before arriving at Worthy. However, Makdessi’s recent social posts – including one Instagram post in particular – have peeved Smith into wanting a rematch.

In an Instagram story posted by Makdessi on Aug. 5 (seen below), he referred to Smith as “Mr. King Monkey.” The name, of course, was a jab at Smith’s “King Kage” nickname. According to Smith, the original beef between the two stemmed out of Makdessi’s social media challenge to Nasrat Haqparast. “King Kage” felt the callout was premature, due to its timing.

“When he backed out, everyone was telling me it’s injury, injury, injury,” Smith told MMA Junkie. “But nobody would tell me what that injury was. Stuff happened, and I let it go. As long as I got another opponent, I don’t really care. But then, I seen somebody tag me in a post of his calling somebody else out two weeks before we were supposed to fight.

“In my opinion, if you injured, we ain’t supposed to hear nothing from you, but, ‘surgery is going well,’ or ‘healing up great,’ or pictures of your injury. Not, ‘Hey, I’m going to be able to fight in December or January.’”

Additionally, Smith sees the Canadian as “soft” because his challenge was directed at Haqparast, a former teammate of Makdessi’s.

Makdessi and Haqparast trained at Tristar MMA for a while, before the former left the gym in late 2017.

“You want to fight somebody you were on a team with? That also just shows that you’re soft,” Smith said. “You want to fight somebody you used to train with, but you aren’t going to fight somebody that you don’t know?”

The back-and-forth eventually boiled up and escalated to Makdessi’s “monkey” comment. Despite alleged claims that “monkey” has an alternative meaning in Canada, Smith is skeptical. Although he has largely shrugged off the comment, Smith said the whole situation has made one thing clear: He wants to fight Makdessi next.

“I didn’t really take offense to it,” Smith said. “Because I knew what he was trying to do. And I knew what he meant, ‘cause that’s what he meant. I don’t care that ‘monkey’ means ‘fool’ in Canada like somebody said. I don’t really care for that. You know what you said. You know what you meant. He’s soft, and he tweets. And after this win, he will get his work, regardless, because he still owes me three checks.”

Smith later continued, “He crossed the line in the sense that I knew what he meant, and he knew what he meant when he said it. But I’m shrugging it off in the sense of, ‘I’m going to see you when I see you,’ We are literally in the business where we can settle our differences by physically harming each other.

“I will see you when I see you. It’s none of that, ‘I’m going to fight you in the street.’ No, I’m going to get paid to put my hands on you, because at the end of the day, I’m going to see you.”